


the things they see at night

by themountainkingsreturn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Healing, Nightmares, PTSD, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 14:58:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themountainkingsreturn/pseuds/themountainkingsreturn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are broken, the both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the things they see at night

They are broken, the both of them.

The third night he stays over, Mary wakes up screaming.

He reflexively grabs her hand, and she squeezes it so tightly it hurts. Her chest heaves in the slatted moonlight. He breathes with her, each cycle of inhaling and exhaling slower than the last as she slowly finds her way back into the dark bedroom. It's a familiar pattern for him. Hours seem to pass in which breathing is the only form of existence. For an unknown amount of time, they are disembodied lungs in a black sea. Finally, she falls back onto the tangled sheets and lies there, still, tense, staring. Her hand is still gripping his.

He does not ask.

Instead, he turns onto his side and shifts their linked hands onto the pillow between then. She closes her eyes, and he watches her until she falls asleep. Then he abandons himself to the hell that is his own dreams, in which Sherlock falls over and over and over and blood spatters his face again and again and again…

They are broken, the both of them. But slowly, by tenacious, tender force of will, they begin to mend each other. The cracks start to knit together. They are both stronger than they seem, and tending to each others' wounds gives them license to heal their own. Sometimes John catches her staring out the window into the dark, and he can almost read her thoughts in the shadow-secrets of her neck…but not quite. She begins to smile more. She completes crossword puzzles with made up words and makes him laugh even on the days when he misses Sherlock most. She picks up more hours at work and gets a raise. The dreams fade, and John holds her through the night because he wants her closer than he's ever wanted anyone before. She does not fill the hole that Sherlock tore. But she stems the flow of his soul leaking from the cracks in his skin, and then she begins to build. And somehow, the world seems a little brighter.


End file.
